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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25077916">you're never fully dressed without a shield</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/phae/pseuds/phae'>phae</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>cyber heaven verse [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clint is not an avenger, Established Relationship, M/M, Mission Fic, Vigilante Clint</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:29:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,315</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25077916</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/phae/pseuds/phae</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's not a hero, super or otherwise.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clint Barton/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>cyber heaven verse [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1067378</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>89</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>you're never fully dressed without a shield</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindovermadness/gifts">mindovermadness</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>mindovermadness left a comment on <i>born of the 4th of july</i> that inspired me to finally finish and post this installment. I hope you enjoy!</p>
<p>Thank you to <a href="https://redsector-a.tumblr.com/">redsector-a</a> for tossing around pet name ideas with me!</p>
<p>And a shoutout to <a href="https://selori.tumblr.com/">selori</a>, <a href="https://tayefeth.tumblr.com/">tayefeth</a>, and <a href="https://redsector-a.tumblr.com/">redsector-a</a> for cheerleading to get me through the final push with this one! Thanks, buds!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Clint’s not a superhero.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s not even just a regular, everyday hero. Sure, his targets are bad guys, but targeting them doesn’t make Clint a <em> good guy</em>. At best, he’s a vigilante, but most days, Clint thinks even that descriptor is stretching it just a bit. He abides by an ‘ends justify the means’ kind of mentality whenever it suits him, and good guys don’t do that--not <em> actual </em>good guys, anyways.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And as far as that whole <em> super </em> shit goes--well. There was, admittedly, that time a few years back when some professor guy in a tricked out wheelchair tracked him down to check if he was a mutant after some rumors about Clint’s preternatural eyesight and aim had started circulating a little too widely to keep contained (and after that, Clint had learned a very valuable, very <em> painful </em>lesson about getting cocky and showing off in front of probably-terrorist cells). </p>
<p> </p>
<p>But Clint’s not a mutant, as he’d explained to the wheelchair professor dude ad nauseum--<em>no, you cannot have a small blood sample to check just to make sure, talk about Stranger Danger. </em> Clint’s just a guy running around fighting with a stick and a string from the Paleolithic era, who practices with said stick and string probably more than is healthy, except how that practice is all that’s kept him alive most days when shit hit the fan. Ain’t nothing super, nothing <em> special</em>, about that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint’s got this kind of sixth sense, though. Not like in a superpower kind of way, because, as previously mentioned, he’s got nothing to do with that shit. It’s more like in a hyper-vigilant, overdeveloped sense of awareness kind of way that’s got less to do with a mad scientist’s experiment gone wrong and a whole lot to do with growing up getting tossed in and out of abusive homes and then willingly joining up with a circus full of all kinds of unsavory types.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Still, it’s useful in his current line of work. Like right now, when he can’t hear anything, sure as shit can’t <em> see </em> anything beyond the backlit computer screens, but still he knows someone’s circling in on his location. He crouches low as he starts to back slowly into a more defensible position in the lab space, but as he’s moseying along, his aids, cranked up as high as they’ll go, catch the faintest <em> shing </em> of something moving very fast--and right towards him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint surges up and pivots, swinging his body around and out of the immediate path of whatever’s coming his way. Out of instinct, one hand shoots out to follow the object’s arc as it’s passing him, and then he quickly has to grasp hold with <em> both </em> hands ‘cause holy <em> cheese noodles </em>that’s got some weight to it. He keeps spinning, lets the object’s weight carry over to further propel his momentum, and it takes him a couple turns, but he’s finally able to slow it down enough that he can stop and drop down properly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Granted, soon as he’s not being pulled along in its wake, it doesn’t take him long to identify the red, white and blue bullseye he’s now holding on to.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint grinds his back teeth together and can’t hold back a frustrated growl. “Fucking--<em> Steve</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>From the depths of the ghostly lit lab, a soft, hesitant voice answers him: “Oh. Hey, sunshine.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What’re you<em>-- </em> ” Clint cuts himself off and stomps indignantly out to the middle of the floor where the computer monitors cast a decent ring of light to see by rather than be blinded by, and he gestures angrily with the shield for Steve to get to where he is<em>, now </em>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve shuffles out around the door jamb, one hand tucked behind his head in a characteristic gesture that’s all Steve and nothing Captain America, not least of all because in that damned cowl, he can’t even muss up his hair, as is his wont.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint very pointedly slips his arm through the straps on the back of the shield without taking his narrow-eyed glare off Steve to even blink. Steve just grins back at him sheepishly, shrugging in a helpless kind of <em> what’re the odds, huh? </em>way as his arm drops back to his side.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What are you <em> doing here</em>?” Clint demands once Steve’s close enough that Clint can verify he’s just got a comm on him, and it’s not transmitting, so no one’s listening in on them right this second.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, you see,” Steve starts off, his arms crossing and torso leaning in conspiratorially. “There’s this little thing called internal security measures, and when a motion sensor gets tripped in a fancy building like this, it tends to alert people that something might be up--”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint flings out a hand, whacking against the armor covering Steve’s peck. (Which, on their own, are already fucking rocks, but covered in StarkTech armor? Fucking <em> ow</em>, why did he just do that?) “Cut the bullshit, you giant jackrabbit,” Clint hisses back with a scowl. “I didn’t trip a fucking <em> motion sensor</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hey, don’t give me that look!” Steve’s hands shoot up in surrender, and he widens his eyes <em> just so</em>, but Clint is all too familiar with how very <em> not </em>innocent the man is, thank you very much. “I’m not doubting you for a second, sunshine. The militant protest group that’s been blowing up steam about these guys the past couple weeks, though…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve trails off meaningfully, and Clint can only gape back at him, gobsmacked. Finally, he bursts out, “Do they not have <em> any duck-fucked idea </em>how long I’ve been planning this takedown?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“There, there, hun.” Steve reaches out, no doubt aiming to pat at Clint’s head like the condescending asshat that he <em> absolutely </em> is, but Clint jerks his head back with half a mind to jerk it back <em> forward </em> and give Steve a bloody, if short-lived, broken nose. “We’ll get you through it.” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>And Steve thinks he’s being sneaky, when his other hand goes low and tries to slip over the shield to gain a grip, but Clint ducks under one arm and slides out of the range of the other and circles back around to the computer hard drive he was originally copying before he was so rudely interrupted by his <em> Danger, Will Robinson! </em> sixth-sense alarm, Steve’s shield still firmly strapped to his own arm because the rat-bastard <em> doesn’t deserve it</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“In all seriousness, though,” Steve continues, walking up behind Clint but not getting close enough for it to be considered hovering because he’s very conscientious of boundaries and Clint usually <em> really likes that about him</em>, but he can’t right now. “Judging from the security footage they forgot to dodge out on the street before they even made it in the building, it looks like they were smuggling something in, and given the escalating rhetoric in their online threats--”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“A <em> bomb</em>?” Clint growls out as his head whips around from the too-bright light of the computer to blink blindly at the vague silhouette of Steve. “Those incompetent fuck nuggets brought in a shit-on-a-stick <em> bomb </em> to blow up <em> three shitzelled months </em>of in-depth investigative and undercover work to get some actual duck-fucking evidence on these noodle knobs!?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Geez, you’re not even this foul-mouthed when you’re on the brink of an orgasm. Should I be offended?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Steve</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Look, it’s probably just a hoax geared toward landing them some airtime on the primetime news cycle. I’m sure as soon as we can locate the bag they brought in--”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What kind of bag?” Clint cuts in, his eyes narrowing as his mind drifts back to reviewing everyone he catalogued in the building while he was sneaking his way up to the 9th floor and the most relevant computer terminal--mostly the cleaning crew, a few office workers packing up and leaving late, and even fewer still that seemed hell-bent on staying glued to their desks until they passed out from sheer exhaustion; ie, no one immediately suspicious, but when one’s dealing with supposed-amateurs, that’s never a good thing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“A duffle bag?” Steve shrugs. “Black. The security camera across the street caught them stuffing it into a bag of trash then bringing it in through--”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Shoes!” Clint shouts as the dots all of a sudden make perfect sense, and there’s no point bothering to actually connect them when he already knows what the picture’s meant to be.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve regards him with that same look he gets when they’re holed up in an excessively nice hotel room and he finally starts gaping around at all the unnecessary luxury to notice that Clint’s already naked and getting things started without him. “I’m--sorry?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint yanks his flash drive out of the computer tower and pockets it before he resituates the shield’s straps higher up on his arm. He shoves Steve ahead of him with sharp stabs of his fingers in the places where his field armor is thinner to allow for too-flexible movements. “Go, <em> go</em>! The stairs!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Even though they’ve never worked together in the field before, Steve does as he’s told without any fuss, all hints of his usual snark disappearing into the terrifying visage of Captain America On A Mission as he barrels ahead of Clint and shoulder-checks the stairwell door clear off its hinges and vaults straight over the railing and to the next landing down.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Did you see something?” Steve demands. “‘Cause this is the part where you say something!” And alright, so Clint thought too soon on that whole no-snark thing, but he’s more relieved than surprised, because the snark reminds him that it’s definitely <em> Steve </em>in front of him. Steve he can trust; Captain America, though--things could still go either way there, honestly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The janitor’s shoes!” Clint exclaims, jumping down the incessant half-flights behind Steve, who’s damn well parkouring from one wall to another. “I <em> thought </em> they looked all wrong when I walked past him! Ugh, why didn’t I just go with my damn gut on the shoes?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Clint</em>, which floor was it on?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t know the number, but there was definitely a ficus!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So <em> where are we going</em>!?” Steve exclaims incredulously, pausing where he’s braced in a crouch on the guard rail a flight below Clint.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s not like I came in through an actual entrance--” Clint starts to explain as he bounds forward to finally catch up to Steve, but then a dark stain on the cement catches his eye on the way past and he has to back track up the steps, and he calls back over his shoulder, “Oh hey, wait, it’s this one!” </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint yanks the door out of his way more than he opens it, really. Adrenaline is surging through his whole body, trying to set his hands to shaking, his eyes to jumping between anything they can alight on for a fraction of a second--but he’s been training himself his whole life in how to override that instinctive fight or flight instinct. <em> Instinct </em> implies there’s no thought behind the action, and in his extensive experience, it’s the times he <em> stopped thinking </em>that things really went to shit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So he breathes through the panic and makes his body calm the <em> frickity-frack down </em> and he <em> looks</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s the shadows of cubicles offset by the dim permanent lighting overhead, a few stray office chairs that rolled outside of the boxed-off confines, empty trash cans waiting outside closed office doors. Clint glances to his left, and sure enough, there’s the ficus he remembers skirting on the way to the elevator, walking past what he’d assumed at the time was a regular night janitor while Clint’s head was tilted down like he was absorbed in scrolling on his phone after a too-long day in the office, barely noticing the man’s shoes even as he absently noted that they seemed impractical for the man’s profession.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint really hates it when his sixth sense whispers about <em> very useful things </em> but he <em> doesn’t listen ‘cause he can’t hear it. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>But then there’s the times it sets every hair on his body standing on end ‘cause something’s <em> super not right</em>, that Clint’s just so stupidly grateful he’s got it at all, so. It’s a trade off, really.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s enough of a warning for Clint to turn and wrap himself around Steve, twisting their bodies so that the gaudy shield still strapped to his arm is in place to guard Steve’s unprotected back--where the shield’s <em> supposed to be</em>--from the fast approaching <em> fire and debris and percussive force and imminent death-- </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint must’ve blacked out for a second with the force of the blast knocking him into the wall and Steve into <em> him </em> because the next thing he knows, he’s sprawled out on the ground under the shriveled remains of a ficus with Steve crushing every little breath out of his body and his BTEs are now set to <em> ring</em>. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint blinks up at the cloud of smoke and ash singing over his head and tries to sort out his ears from his eyes. He fumbles to get a hand free so that he can reach up and flick his aids off, but there’s no discernible change in the feedback bouncing through his skull from one useless ear to the other.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve’s face pops into view, even though Clint doesn’t feel any of the rest of him moving. He probably thinks he’s being his superhero-self and shielding Clint’s non-super body from the crumbling leftovers of the floor above, but that’s what the <em> actual shield </em> is for, and Clint’s arm is stuck between it and Steve, taking on the brunt of the weight.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Through the typical haze a bomb leaves in its wake, Clint can see that Steve’s lips are moving, but he can’t make heads or tails of what that means. “Huh?” he asks. Or well, he tries to, at any rate. His lungs immediately protest the attempt, and then he’s just desperately trying to hack up a bunch of dust and debris.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One of Steve’s hands is suddenly covering Clint’s own, and then there’s a layer of sound overtop the incessant ringing, and Clint’s not much a fan <em> at all</em>, but needs must, etcetera, etcetera.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Into the tense lack of silence of a building groaning under a dramatic shift in structural circumstances, Steve huffs out a croaking, “My hero.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You mind getting offa me?” Clint raspily complains as he shoves ineffectually at Steve’s smothering bulk. “You’re too heavy to be playing the damsel in distress here.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve pushes himself up onto his forearms, and Clint makes sure to exaggerate how big a breath he takes in as soon as there’s space for his chest to expand just to tease an exasperated glare out of Steve. The guy can only be so damaged if he’s up to sassing Clint with his face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve’s eyes cut away from Clint suddenly, to the wall. Clint glances over too, heart pounding up into his throat because honestly, he was nearly blown up a minute ago, and he’d really appreciate a breather to catch his bearings--but it’s just a wall, lightly singed, some slight smoldering around the edges.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint turns back to Steve with a question etched on his face, and Steve’s stretching a hand up to his ear to tap at his comm unit. Clint reads more than hears him say, “This is Cap. I’m fine, blast just missed me. I’m near the north stairwell entrance on the 4th floor. Evacuating now. Do I need to head out the window, or can I take the stairs?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint stares up at Steve while his attention is focused on whatever information his team is feeding him. He should really stare at Steve more often. His boyfriend is like, stupid pretty, even when he’s covered in soot and sweat. Maybe especially when he’s covered in soot and sweat.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve’s hand moves away from his ear, and then he proceeds to push himself off of Clint and back onto his feet. “Well, duty calls,” he huffs as he lifts Clint up, easy as you please. Clint feels like he should maybe take offense to that, because he’s a serious beefcake, okay? But mostly he’s just turned on.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s possible Clint may have a concussion. A horny-inducing concussion.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wait, no, that's a thing, isn’t it? Like a life-affirming kind of thing after you’ve nearly died in a horrific fashion. He’s definitely seen that in movies before. The hero rescues the girl just in the nick of time, then she totally kisses him ‘cause like, <em> hey, we’re alive</em>!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Except Clint’s definitely the hero (though not really) here, he totally just saved Steve, so shouldn’t Steve be the one wanting to kiss <em> him</em>? </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You get what you needed, at least?” Steve asks suddenly, pulling Clint out of his head and back into his body. Steve’s regarding him with a bemused expression as he moves his grip on Clint from under his elbows to over his shoulders, and his thumbs rub soothingly along the column of Clint’s neck, which is really nice. Clint should ask him to do more of that next time they’re all alone in a fancy hotel room and Steve keeps asking, in that eager-to-please way he gets when he’s just come but still wants more, what <em> Clint </em> wants.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Speaking of--Clint rakes his eyes up and down Steve’s lovely, dusty torso with the most obvious leer he can manage. “For now,” he admits and lets his gaze tip over from appraising to smoldering--much like the cheap pile carpet surrounding them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve grins, bright and warm and wonderful. Where does he get off calling Clint <em> sunshine </em>all the damn time, huh? He’s the one always lit up like a star. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I should be free after debrief tonight,” Steve says as an excited flush peeks out from under the grime streaking over his cheeks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint nods. Backs out from under Steve’s hands. Sweeps his eyes around the room looking for a likely exit. Really, anything that can distract him from jumping Steve right now because this is <em> not the time</em>. “I’ll text you a place.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Looking forward to it.” Then one of Steve’s hands is back, wrapped around Clint’s wrist this time and keeping him getting too far. “Forgetting something?” Steve asks with a cocked eyebrow and a smirk to match. Clint blinks back at him--because <em> concussion </em> but also <em> can’t let Steve know about said concussion-- </em>until Steve glances down between them pointedly and Clint follows his lead with a vague sense of dread.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Oh, yeah. That.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint shifts his stance so that Steve’s shield, still very much attached to his own arm, is out of easy reach. “Am I?” he questions back with just a hint of challenge leaking through.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve, because he’s an uber-competitive little punk, reels Clint in and seals their lips together more aggressively than strictly necessary, and Clint discovers that he picked up a split lip somewhere along the way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The sting isn’t enough to get him to back down, though, so he pushes right on up into Steve’s personal bubble and nips at Steve’s lips until he parts them obligingly. He lets himself fall into the moment--Steve solid and real against him as they trade kisses like blows in a spar--and doesn’t even begrudge Steve when he slips a hand down Clint’s arm to deftly loosen the straps keeping the shield close so he can slide it off and away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Clint does plant a tracker on the edge while Steve’s still distracted, though. Never know when that might come in handy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve pulls back with a smugly satisfied grin and breathes out, “Mm, see you tonight.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not if I see you first,” Clint replies as he slinks away to the nearest exit. And if it sounds mildly ominous, that’s hardly Clint’s fault. He’s not a hero, after all, and it wouldn’t do to let Steve get the wrong idea about him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This originally began as a fill for AmeriHawk Week back in 2018, but I never finished it way back when, obviously. A first draft/partial version was posted on my tumblr at the time, so parts of this may seem familiar.</p>
<p>DAY 2 - Everyday Heroes or Superheroes</p></blockquote></div></div>
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